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The following is an excerpt from Life After Jerusalem, a blog by a lesbian American Indian Foreign Service officer:

None of the stories I have seen on the event (such as this one in the Washington Post and this one in the Washington Blade), which I am the first to admit is a wonderful thing and evidence of how far we have come, mentioned this absence. Which I take as evidence of how far we have to go.
[…]
When the Department recently appointed an LGBT envoy, which to its credit is a career FSO (as is only one of the out gay Ambassadors), it appointed another white man. I was told at the time that there just aren’t any lesbians or people of color who rank highly enough to be considered. And that seems to be true. I can find no lesbian or out person of color who has made it to the ranks of Senior Foreign Service.

Of course, rank didn’t stop the Department during Secretary Rice’s tenure from appointing several men to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) who were only FS 02s in rank (for reference, FS 02 is the Foreign Service equivalent of a Lt. Colonel. Senior Foreign Service is the equivalent of a general. The highest ranking out lesbians that I know of in the Department are FS 01s, or Colonels, higher ranking than those men who were made DASes). And those men did not return to their mid-level positions afterward. In fact, two became Ambassadors, another an Assistant Secretary.

So really, the Department could appoint a career lesbian or out person of color if it really wanted to.

On March 16, the United States and Canada signed a new agreement reaffirming the United States and Canada’s commitment to enhancing security while facilitating lawful travel and trade, and supersedes the existing U.S.-Canada Air Preclearance agreement signed in 2001. The new preclearance agreement – allowing for the immigration, customs and agriculture inspections required for entry into either country to occur on foreign soil – will reportedly reduce congestion and delays at the border and increase efficiency and predictability in cross-border travel, tourism and transportation.

Then yesterday, the Globe and Mail’s Campbell Clark has a long piece on what is reportedly Bruce Heyman’s “rough year” as America’s ambassador to Ottawa.

For Mr. Heyman, it’s telling that since the day he presented his credentials nearly a year ago, when he and his wife Vicki had a 15-minute meet-and-greet with Mr. Harper and his wife Laureen, the U.S. ambassador has never had a one-on-one with the PM.
[…]
“There was no edict,” one senior Canadian government figure insisted. But several sources said there was at least a common narrative, from the Prime Minister’s Office to ministers, that Mr. Heyman wasn’t welcome.

A related note — right there is an example of unpaid labor by a chief of mission spouse, a tradition deeply valued by the State Department until 1972 when the directive on diplomatic wives was issued and thereby ruined the much-beloved twofer system. That’s when participation by a Foreign Service wife in the work of a postwas deemed “a voluntary act of a private person” and when the diplomatic spouse’s performance memorandum stopped being placed in the FSO’s performance dossier. We presumed, by the language of the directive, that up to 1972 there were no accompanying male diplomatic spouses in the service.

On March 17, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) wrote to Arnold Chacon, the Director General of the Foreign Service and the State Department’s top HR official requesting clarity on the applicability of 3 FAM to career and political/non-career employees of the oldest executive agency in the union.

We would be grateful if you could help us understand if there is, in practice or by law, any difference in how these standards apply to and are enforced for non-career appointees as opposed to career employees, both Foreign Service and Civil Service.

AFSA noted the March 10 press briefing, where “Spokesperson Jen Psaki referred to 3 FAM as “guidelines” as distinguished from “law”:

As the Foreign Service, we have always understood the FAM to consist of regulations to which we must adhere. AFSA would like to ask if non-career appointees are formally subject to all of the rules and regulations in 3 FAM.

Foreign Affairs Manual

3 FAM is the section of the Foreign Affairs Manual that covers personnel:

This volume of the FAM sets forth the policies and regulations governing the administration of the personnel system applicable to the Department of State. Regulations adopted jointly by the Department of State and other agencies (e.g. Broadcasting Board of Governors, USAID, Commerce, Agriculture, Peace Corps,) are so identified wherever they appear in this volume. (see pdf)

Volume 3 of the FAM is organized around eight major personnel topics, each of which is assigned a series of nine chapters of 89 subchapters. In so far as is practicable, each subchapter is restricted to a single topic. Since some topics relate to both Foreign Service and Civil Service employees, while others relate to employees of only one of the services, subchapters, or parts thereof, contain a legend, which indicates coverage.

☞Chapters in the 1000 series contain general information on the organization of the FAM and general policies and regulations relating to all Civil Service and/or Foreign Service employees.

☞Chapters in the 2000 series contain regulations and policies, which govern the day-to-day operations of the Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel systems.

☞Chapters in the 3000 series contain regulations and policies which govern Civil Service and Foreign Service pay, leave administration, benefits (e.g. Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB), Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI), Office of Worker’s Compensation Program (OWCP), Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE), Reasonable Accommodations), allowances and travel. In addition, Chapters in the 3000 series contains special program regulations and policies such as Transit Subsidy Program, Student Loan Repayment Program (SLRP), and Professional Liability Insurance (PLI).

☞Chapters in the 4000 series contain regulations and policies which govern the conduct of Foreign Service and Civil Service employees; provide penalties for misconduct; establish grievance and appeals procedures; and provide for awards for outstanding performance.

☞Chapters in the 5000 series contain regulations and policies, which govern labor management relations in the Department.

☞Chapters in the 6000 series contain regulations and policies, which govern the administration of the retirement program for Civil Service and Foreign Service employees.

☞Chapters in the 7000 series contain regulations and policies, which govern the administration of the Foreign Service National personnel system for Overseas Employees.

☞Chapters in the 8000 series contain regulations and policies, which govern the administration of the various overseas employment programs administered by the Office of Overseas Employment (HR/OE).

If it comes from the podium, it is official.

So it is, of course, understandable that AFSA is concerned when she calls the FAM “guidelines.” But equally troubling to hear her say from the official podium that the FAM is not regulations but recommendations, as if somehow adherence to it is voluntary and optional. We’ve asked state.gov for a comment and the nice person there told us they’re consulting with their subject matter experts and hopefully will have something for us.

Anyone has an in with the folks at the Office of the Legal Adviser? Would you kindly please ask them to wade in on this?

Dan Metcalfe spent more than thirty years working at the U.S. Department of Justice where he served from 1981 to 2007 as director of the Office of Information and Privacy. He was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the FOIA throughout the entire executive branch. He now teaches secrecy law at American University’s Washington College of Law. His deconstruction of the former secretary of state’s explanation on her exclusive use of private email is probably the best one we’ve seen so far. There is also an analysis here from the National Security Archive.

Below is an excerpt from the op-ed piece Mr. Metcalfe wrote for Politico:

[T]here is the compounding fact that Secretary Clinton did not merely use a personal email account; she used one that atypically operated solely through her own personal email server, which she evidently had installed in her home. This meant that, unlike the multitudes who use a Gmail account, for instance, she was able to keep her communications entirely “in house,” even more deeply within her personal control. No “cloud” for posterity, or chance of Google receiving a congressional subpoena—not for her. No potentially pesky “metadata” surrounding her communications or detailed server logs to complicate things. And absolutely no practical constraint on her ability to dispose of any official email of “hers,” for any reason, at any time, entirely on her own. Bluntly put, when this unique records regime was established, somebody was asleep at the switch, at either the State Department or the National Archives and Records Administration (which oversees compliance with the Federal Records Act)—or both.

[…] as Secretary Clinton might like to claim personal “credit” for this successful scheme when talking with her friends about it within the privacy of her own home—perhaps while leaning against her private Internet server in her basement—the fact is that she didn’t invent this form of law circumvention; she just uniquely refined it. Yes, it was the Bush administration—specifically, the White House Office of Administration in concert with Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee—that likewise succeeded with wholesale email diversion back in the pre-smartphone days of freewheeling Blackberry usage.

Unfortunately for all of us, the competition for perverse “honors” in the world of circumventing both the letter and the spirit of federal records laws is indeed quite stiff.

Then there’s this guy who in 1994 was a 22 year old who worked as a computer programmer for a company called Information Management Consultants tasked with sorting through presidential docs in 1993. He wondered if the Clinton team included technical wizards who designed a flawless keyword search when combing through her emails:

If so, she should release technical documentation of the search algorithm, the test procedure, and the test results — assuming they tested it. Without that information, we have no basis for sharing Hillary Clinton’s “absolute confidence” that the State Department has received all her work-related email communication.

Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to know who should get a large medal for being asleep at the switch at the State Department on this? Asleep at the switch doesn’t sound very good but perhaps it is a kinder version for whatever it was that happened at HST.

“I did email with her from time to time and I don’t remember exactly how it showed up.”

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew

At a hearing at the House Financial Services Committee in Washington, on March 17, 2015 when asked by GOP lawmaker, Rep. Sean Duffy (R., Wis.), if he knew Mrs. Clinton was emailing on a private account. Mr. Lew was the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources from January 28, 2009 – November 18, 2010 when the D/MR position was first established.

We agree that the Maduro accusations have been ludicrous for a while now (see Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro’s Theory of Everything — Blame The Yanquis!). But when you add, “as a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means …” we tripped all over the hallways and stairwells and have all sorts of bruises to show for it. In times like this, we revert back to an old habit of getting drunk on bad rhymes. Who writes these scripts? Do they practice with a mirror? Folks, there’s a whole crowd of people on the Internets who can’t quit laughing over this. And they’re not just laughing at Ms. Psaki, or the State Department. They’re laughing at the United States of America. Ay dios mio! You, okay with that?

QUESTION: President Maduro last night went on the air and said that they had arrested multiple people who were allegedly behind a coup that was backed by the United States. What is your response?

MS. PSAKI: These latest accusations, like all previous such accusations, are ludicrous. As a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful, and legal. We have seen many times that the Venezuelan Government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan Government to deal with the grave situation it faces.

QUESTION: The U.S. —

QUESTION: Sorry, Jen —

QUESTION: Sorry. The U.S. has – whoa, whoa, whoa. The U.S. has a longstanding practice of not promoting – what did you say? How longstanding is that? I would – in particular in South and Latin America, that is not a longstanding practice.

MS. PSAKI: Well, my point here, Matt, without getting into history —

QUESTION: Not in this case.

MS. PSAKI: — is that we do not support, we have no involvement with, and these are ludicrous accusations.

QUESTION: In this specific case.

MS. PSAKI: Correct.

QUESTION: But if you go back not that long ago during your lifetime, even – (laughter) – this is not that long since —

MS. PSAKI: The last 21 years. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Well done. Touche. But I mean, does “longstanding” mean 10 years in this case? I mean, what is —

MS. PSAKI: Matt, my intention was to speak to the specific reports.

QUESTION: I understand, but you said it’s a longstanding U.S. practice, and I’m not so sure – it depends on what your definition of “longstanding” is.

MS. PSAKI: We will – okay.

QUESTION: Recently in Kyiv, whatever we say about Ukraine, whatever, the change of government and then the beginning of last year was unconstitutional, and you supported it. The constitution was —

MS. PSAKI: That is also ludicrous, I would say.

QUESTION: — not observed.

MS. PSAKI: That is not accurate, nor is it with the history of the facts that happened at the time.

QUESTION: Yes, the history of the facts. How was it constitutional?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I don’t think I need to go through the history here, but since you gave me the opportunity – as you know, the former leader of Ukraine left of his own accord —

QUESTION: He did not leave his country.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. PSAKI: Okay. I think we know the facts here, and we’ll certainly give you an article on the facts to take a look at.

Last week, the State Department announced two new special envoy appointments. The first one announced on February 18 was the appointment of Rashad Hussain as United States Special Envoy and Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. Since 2010, Special Envoy Hussain has served as U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In 2009, Mr. Hussain worked with the National Security Council in developing and pursuing the New Beginning that President Obama outlined in his address in Cairo, Egypt. Before joining the White House, Mr. Hussain was a member of the legal staff for the Presidential Transition Team.

Special Envoy Hussain will lead a staff drawn from a number of U.S. departments and agencies to expand international engagement and partnerships to counter violent extremism and to develop strategic counterterrorism communications around the world. As part of this role, Special Envoy Hussain will also serve as Coordinator of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which was established at the direction of the President and former Secretary of State Clinton in 2010 and codified by President Obama’s Executive Order 13584 to coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide strategic communications focused on violent extremists and terrorist organizations.
[…]
Mr. Hussain received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Upon graduation, he served as a Law Clerk to Damon J. Keith on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Mr. Hussain also earned his Master’s degrees in Public Administration (Kennedy School of Government) and Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University. He attended college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His academic writings have focused on national security, constitutional law, and civil liberties.

It looks like Special Envoy Hussain would will replace Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez who assumed the position of Coordinator of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) in 2012. The center was established in September 2010 to coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide public communications activities directed at audiences abroad and targeted against violent extremists and terrorist organizations, especially al-Qaida, its affiliates, and its adherents. We understand that Ambassador Fernandez is heading to retirement.

On February 20, Secretary Kerry also announced the appointment of Bernie Aronson as the United States special envoy for the Colombian peace process:

Now Bernie’s experience in this region is significant. It’s extensive. In addition to being a former assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, his well-recognized hard work in helping to resolve the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua is really a lasting achievement in American diplomacy, and it earned him the State Department’s Distinguished Service Medal and the admiration of all those who followed those talks and who have worked in the region since.[…]These negotiations are not easy, and we know that. Negotiations like this never are. They’re reasons that this has gone on for years and years. If it was easy, it would have been done already. The Colombian Government and the FARC have been fighting for longer than most Colombians have been alive. And after so many years of violence, emotions always run strong, and that’s understandable.

But with courage, with determination, with a just and lasting commitment to peace, we think that the courage shown by President Santos and the people of Colombia in pursuing these talks could actually find a resolution. With the help of Special Envoy Aronson, the United States is going to continue to stand by Colombians’ side in this journey, and we hope that 2015 could possibly take a step forward in helping to bring Colombia the security, the prosperity and, most importantly, the peace that it deserves.

These latest appointments join almost 30 other special envoys/special representatives currentlyencumbering filling in various portfolios in Foggy Bottom ranging from Af/Pak and climate change to commercial/business affairs, and religion and foreign policy. Special envoy/special representative appointments do not require Senate confirmations.

We’re going to miss Admiral Kirby from that podium, and we’re going to miss the fake one, too. This one via @Doctrine Man sums it up:

John Kirby brought three things to the podium that are a rare combination in this business: credibility, character, and competence. Together, they equated to a presence that was second to none. He earned the respect and admiration of the Pentagon Press Corps, built relationships that spanned to the soggy side of the Potomac, and calmly managed each and every crisis that ballooned within the walls of The Building (and there were quite a few). In a tenure that lasted just 14 months (I know, it seemed like more), he became a calm voice of reason in Washington unlike any other, eclipsing both the White House and State Department press secretaries at a time when there was more than enough bad news to go around.

Today, news broke that the State Department Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki is returning to the White House as communications director:

The State Department spokesperson, more than the White House spokesman is the public face of the United States to the world. The spokesperson is not only speaking on behalf of Foggy Bottom but on behalf of the United States. Here’s our short list for the next podium king/queen: We’d like to see one who can stay on message, and still be credible, one who inspires respect not derision; a sense of humor and some humility would be nice, too. We’d like to see an intelligent, natural performer with solid international affairs experience up that podium. And of course, somebody eloquent and quick witted to spar with Matt Lee.